Favorite Bench Series: In Search of a Bench for Painting by Peter Delahaye

Away on any journey, I always bring paints, paper and brushes hoping to indulge in plein air landscape sketching. I’m never encumbered by easels and stools and adapt well to using sawn-off tree trunks, stone walls and ledges, and rocks to balance my artist materials.

Benches provide the perfect spot to hanker down. If you can find them. In many cases, they are screwed down to a concrete slab and oriented in completely the wrong direction. Or they are occupied by families lunching, or couples clearly there for a long siesta.

Usually after the first day, totally frustrated, I’d like to approach the local tourist authorities to suggest a ‘painters guide to sketching the landscape’. In Extremadura Spain, I suggested to the mayor of Truillo that he needed to add special painters’ benches in key beauty spots, and promote and advertise these. Benches, or tables with seats, a water source, a rubbish container are all that are needed.